We live in a time of educational transformations towards more 21st century pedagogies and learning. In the digital age children and young people need to learn critical thinking, creativity and innovation and the ability to solve complex problems and challenges. Traditional pedagogies are in crisis and many pupils experience school as both boring and irrelevant. As a response educators and researchers need to engage in transforming education through the invention of new designs in and for learning. This book explores how games can provide new ideas and new designs for future education. Computer games have become hugely popular and engaging, but as is apparent in this book, games are not magical solutions to making education more engaging, fun and relevant.

Games and Education explores new designs in and for learning and offer inspiration to teachers, technologists and researchers interested in changing educational practices. Based on contributions from Scandinavian researchers, the book highlights participatory approaches to research and practice by providing more realistic experiences and models of how games can facilitate learning in school.

Based on Bandlien’s micro-ethnographic study, where eighth-grade pupils composed music on an iPad, this chapter questions how pupils who are composing on an iPad are challenged to engage and to reflect in their encounter with that kind of technology. In line with a design-theoretical perspective, technology is regarded as an orchestration of semiotic resources in a social context. By applying a performative inquiry, focusing on stop moments in the pupils’ processes, we argue that iPad composing can be a teaching practice where pupils’ own active performative contributions become the core of the learning activity.

5. Samhällskunskap som skolämne

Bronäs, Agneta

et al.

Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Education in Humanities and Social Sciences.

Selander, Staffan

Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Education in Humanities and Social Sciences.

The re-conceptualisation of texts over the last 20 years, as well as the development of a multimodal understanding of communication and representation of knowledge, has profound consequences for the reading and understanding of multimodal texts, not least in educational contexts. However, if teachers and students are given tools to “unwrap” multimodal texts, they can develop a deeper understanding of texts, information structures, and the textual organisation of knowledge. This article presents a model for working with multimodal texts in education with the intention to highlight mutual multimodal text analysis in relation to the subject content. Examples are taken from a Singaporean science textbook as well as a Chilean science textbook, in order to demonstrate that the framework is versatile and applicable across different cultural contexts.

The model takes into account the following aspects of texts: the general structure, how different semiotic resources operate, the ways in which different resources are combined (including coherence), the use of figurative language, and explicit/implicit values. Since learning operates on different dimensions – such as social and affective dimensions besides the cognitive ones – our inclusion of figurative language and values as components for textual analysis is a contribution to multimodal text analysis for learning.

Multimedial and multimodal communication arouse interest in many fields of research today. By contrast, little attention is paid to multimodality in relation to designs for learning, especially in relation to representations of knowledge on an aggregated level. By analyzing three multimodal texts about the Middle Ages, including a textbook, a film series and a museum exhibition, this article provides insight into the role of multimodal designs for learning in a school context.

Contemporary teaching and learning imply that pupils encounter curricular content in the form of multimodal representations such as films, museum visits, power point presentations, role play and digital games etc. Verbal language is no more the only mode for knowledge representation and meaning-making. This means a new demand for teaching (and assessment), since the school tradition is heavily based on verbal language and assessments of verbal representations. In this article, we will present an analysis of the use of resources and different media in classroom work about the Middle Ages, and discuss the need for the development of assessment tools.

This article presents a new theoretical and methodological way of studying museum visitors’involvement and meaning-making at a museum exhibition. Our approach drawspredominantly on a design-theoretic and multimodal analysis of learning and communication.This approach is mainly concerned with a) the design aspects of learningresources; b) the learners’ engagement and communication; c) their way of transforminggiven signs to produce (redesign) their own representations in relation to d) personalengagement as well as a specific areas of knowledge. Multimodality pays special attentionto the interplay between different modes in communication. In the article, we use adesign-theoretic, multimodal approach to analyse visitors’ engagement. This is done byfilming the visitors in pairs to see how they walk through the exhibition, where they stop,what they talk about and how their conversation develops. They are also given camerasso they can take photos of those parts of the exhibition they find especially interesting,Afterwards, the visitors are asked to draw a map of the exhibition and they are also interviewed.We also present a model of how to categorize forms of engagement.

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Didactic Science and Early Childhood Education.

Selander, Staffan

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Didactic Science and Early Childhood Education.

Designs for learning in museum contexts2010In: The museum as forum and actor / [ed] Fredrik Svanberg, Stockholm: The museum of national antiquities , 2010, p. 39-53Chapter in book (Other academic)

Abstract [en]

This article presents a new theoretical and methodological way of studying museum visitors’involvement and meaning-making at a museum exhibition. Our approach drawspredominantly on a design-theoretic and multimodal analysis of learning and communication.This approach is mainly concerned with a) the design aspects of learningresources; b) the learners’ engagement and communication; c) their way of transforminggiven signs to produce (redesign) their own representations in relation to d) personalengagement as well as a specific areas of knowledge. Multimodality pays special attentionto the interplay between different modes in communication. In the article, we use adesign-theoretic, multimodal approach to analyse visitors’ engagement. This is done byfilming the visitors in pairs to see how they walk through the exhibition, where they stop,what they talk about and how their conversation develops. They are also given camerasso they can take photos of those parts of the exhibition they find especially interesting,Afterwards, the visitors are asked to draw a map of the exhibition and they are also interviewed.We also present a model of how to categorize forms of engagement.

26. Ett designorienterat perspektiv på lärande

Insulander, Eva

et al.

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Education.

Selander, Staffan

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences.

Recently, motivational aspects of computer games and their suitability as learning environments have been addressed in research on serious games. Some of these publications also address how to design games for learning, and how to prioritize the balance between educational content and the qualities that makes games fun. However, this far consensus is lacking on whether to prioritize the educational aspects of these games or the fun to play them. In this paper we address some of the arguments put forth in this debate and provide four perspectives that should guide the design process of games for learning. These perspectives present views from a game design perspective and from a pedagogical perspective discussing what and how humans learn in society, reflecting the social nature of learning. The four perspectives are used to propose between how to balance educational content and game design elements when designing games for learning rather than taking a stance on preferring one over the other. We propose a solution that gives specific game elements and pedagogical elements equal priority in the design process. Furthermore, we provide a comprehensive view on what part games can play in education and how surrounding pedagogical activities should support the use of games in education. Through the introduction of meaningful learning we claim that both the learning and meaningfulness of a games must be coordinated in such a way that there is a seamless integration of these two values, and that meaningful learning and meaningful play should guide all design processes for creating games with educational content.

30. Learning through Visual Illustration and Retrieval Practice

Jägerskog, Ann-Sofie

et al.

Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Education.

Jönsson, Fredrik

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology.

Jonsson, Bert

Selander, Staffan

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences.

Previous research has shown that studying with (vs. without) visual illustrations as well as taking tests (vs. restudying) is beneficial for learning. Both are well-known learning strategies, but they have not previously been investigated in combination and rarely in the classroom. In this study, 133 upper secondary students were given a lecture presented only verbally or with the aid of a visual illustration. The students processed the information again either by retrieval practice or by restudying it. Recall and transfer tests were conducted after some few minutes, after a week and after 10 weeks. Visuoverbal presentation resulted in better learning than verbal presentation only. Although a modest testing effect was found, this effect was considerably weaker than the multimedia effect. Retrieval practice did not improve the participants’ memory performance beyond the beneficial effect of visuoverbal learning. Presentation format proved to be a more important factor for learning than study strategy.

It is well established that studying with (vs. without) visual illustrations as well as taking tests (vs. restudying) is beneficial for learning, but on which strategy should one put the efforts, or should they be combined for best learning? Eighty-eight upper secondary school students were given a brief lecture presented verbally (6 classes) or with the aid of a visual illustration (visuoverbal, 6 classes). The information was processed again by taking a memory test or by restudying. Recall and transfer tests were conducted after some few minutes and again after one week. The visuoverbal lecture resulted in better learning than verbal presentation only. A significant study strategy by retention interval interaction was found. However, this interaction was not qualified by a testing effect. Hence, taking tests (retrieval practice) did not lead to better learning than restudying. It was concluded that it is worthwhile to use visual illustrations in teaching. However, the present study did not reveal any synergistic effects from the combination of visuoverbal presentation and retrieval practice.

A system of knowledge representation, especially when used in educational settings, both configures the understanding of the phenomenon being represented and designs the communicative setting, in terms of patterns of interaction and assessment practices. The “fixedness” of materialised representations imposes a particular recognised reading path, and a voice of authority defines and delimits the characteristics of the phenomena.

33. Design för lärande i en digital, multimodal lärmiljö

Kjällander, Susanne

et al.

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Didactic Science and Early Childhood Education.

Selander, Staffan

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Didactic Science and Early Childhood Education.

Goal-oriented learning seems to be a ubiquitous demand for almost all kind of play activities today. This demand, the article argues, is related to a specific neo-liberal discourse about the “superchild”. The article shows how this discourse is articulated multimodally in a number of media texts aimed at young children based around a trans-medial brand; Mike the Knight.

This article poses questions regarding learning and representation in relation to young children's popular culture. Focusing on gender, the article builds on multimodal, social semiotic analyses of two different media texts related to a specific brand and shows how gender and gender differences are represented multimodally in separate media contexts and in the interplay between different media. The results show that most of the semiotic resources employed in the different texts contribute in congruent ways to the representation of girls as either different from or inferior to boys. At the same time, however, excerpts from an encounter with a young girl who engages with characters from the brand in her role play are used as an example of how children actively make meaning and find strategies that subvert the repressive ideologies manifested in their everyday popular culture.

38. Estetiska lärprocesser

Lindstrand, Fredrik

et al.

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Didactic Science and Early Childhood Education.

Selander, StaffanStockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Didactic Science and Early Childhood Education.

As been highlighted by many, for instance by PISA, Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) is a critical and necessary 21st century skill across educational settings. While many initiatives have been launched to investigate the nature of these skills, fewer are the attempts to understand how they should be assessed. However, in 2015, the PISA organization presented a framework for assessing CPS skills. This paper reports on an exploratory study investigating the predictive validity of the PISA assessment framework and if and how modes of communication influence the assessment of 24 students' collaborative problem solving activities when using a computer-based assessment task system. The findings presented demonstrate that the PISA CPS assessment framework have a weak predictive validity, does not count for quality or productivity in communication, and that the mode of communication indeed influence CPS processes and in turn what is possible to assess.

This report discusses problems emerging at the crossroads between,on the one hand, technology in its traditional sense – with its rootsin modernisation, industrialisation and the development of products andprocesses – and, on the other, a wider postmodern definition oftechnology as ways of designing and creating environments, taking intoaccount their various consequences for the future development of oursocieties. Technology in this latter sense is no longer looked upon simplyas a hope; it is also seen as a threat in itself because of its role, forinstance, in military operations and environmental problems. Largescaletechnologies result in large-scale consequences. Thus technologyenters into the field of ethics – where it sometimes challenges establishedpositions.A wider definition of technology also embraces the very acts ofcreating, designing and forming – seen both in relation to physical andvirtual artefacts and in relation to new models of thinking and understanding.Technology in this sense puts new demands on teachers andstudents. They must not only achieve an understanding of technology initself but also gain insights into its historical, cultural and social rootsand foundations.The articles in this report were presented at two International ResearchSeminars in 2002, the first in Stockholm, Sweden and the secondin Krakow, Poland.

In this chapter, we will focus on articulations of teaching and learning and relate these to technological shifts and social paradigms. We will briefly describe the changes of technology of learning from SYSTEM 1, which is characterized by rather stable structures, national curricula, classroom teaching, printed school textbooks, and assessment standards (developed during 1945–2000), to SYSTEM 2, which is characterized by dynamic (global) change, the development of digitized media, cognitive systems, mobile learning, and the idea of individual agency (2000→). During these two periods of time, quite different teaching and learning strategies can be articulated: “designed information and teaching” versus “multimodal and distributed designs for learning.” However, most current theories of learning are still founded on theories of meaning developed in an era constituted by SYSTEM 1, and the assumptions of stable systems and the reproduction of forms, processes, and actions. Today, different kinds of platforms, tablets, games, apps, and collaborative problem-solving design have contributed to individual production, new communicative patterns, and information access to such a degree that we could say that “information is no longer the problem.” Information is ubiquitous and cheap. What is at stake is rather to connect people in meaningful communicative settings. The formation and transformation of knowledge and the role of multimodal and distributed designs for learning as a theoretical approach will then be discussed in relation to SYSTEM 2.